book review, of sorts.

So I've been sloooooowly reading The Life of High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse, to the detriment of the due dates of other library books. I think it is suffering from my short attention span, or my natural incompatibility with Victorian fairy tales. Or both.

What I did find enchanting was the scholarly introduction by Lisa Ohm, with biographical information on the mother-and-daughter authors, Bettine von Arnim and Gisela von Arnim Grimm (yes, she married a relative of one of those Grimms--the European fairy tale fandom in the 19C was apparently kinda incestuous).

Those Berlin years were exceptionally productive ones for Bettine and Gisela. The nineteen-year period encompasses all the years of Bettine's published literary activity, and it includes the time that Gisela and Bettine collaborated on Gritta in the early 1840s. Susan Zantop, in her introduction to Bitter Healing: German Women Writers from 1700 to 1830, speaks of the home as a "female ghetto" that became during the Romantic period "a space in which literary activity could develop" (19). Bettine's Berlin home was inded such a place both in spirit and in fact. The atmosphere fostered literary creativity and close collaboration between the women on literary projects as well as with others outside the home.

Is it sounding like fandom yet? How about ( the part about salons? )

von Arnim, Bettine and Gisela von Arnim Grimm. The Life of High Countess Gritta von Ratsinourhouse. Translated and with an introduction by Lisa Ohm. University of Nebraska Press, 1999. pp. xx-xxiii.

This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/526446.html.